May 1, 2012

Our visit is over but we have loads of pictures to remember this wonderful week we have shared: an intense week of hard work sharing good practices and establishing links for future cooperation and projects; but not only have we worked hard, we have also enjoyed wonderful weather, we have witnessed amazing landscapes and we have tasted the Canarian cuisine. We have visited the Natural Reserve of Maspalomas Dunes and its Lagoon, we have had fun on a camel ride, walked up the Roque Nublo, visited the Auditorium Alfredo Kraus, Cristopher Columbus's House and Las Canteras Beach; we have tried delicious meals cooked and served by the students of Tourism at IES San Cristóbal and IES Faro de Maspalomas, and last but not least, we have shared a hilarious afternoon of flolklore with dances and music by the group Horizonte.

Canarian dance and music - Horizonte group

Alfredo Kraus Auditorium

We want to thank all the European participants for their contribution, enthusiasm and kindness, as well as all the speakers who helped the host institution (EOI Maspalomas) in the organisation of this visit: Julia Talavera, Víctor Montesdeoca and Crsitina Monti (EOI Maspalomas), Juana Teresa Domínguez (IES El Rincón), Esther Pinto (IES Las Palmas I), Michael Lord (EOI Guía), María Jesús González (EOI Telde) and EOI Las Palmas II for offering their facilities to host some presentations.

Thanks a million to all the sponsors for their support, especially to Ilustre Ayuntamiento de San Bartolomé de Tirajana.

Starting a blog can involve a considerable amount of time: have a look at this infographic showing what's going on in a blogger's mind and go through this short quiz before you decide seriously if a blog is right for you.

Speaking about classroom blogging, we could define a blog an online publishing forum for your students. It’s a platform in which they can interact beyond the constraints of the school walls, and with which the teacher can provide personalised feedback and support.This is the reason why I call themwindows. Because they are totally open vehicles for communication. There are very low barriers to entry. They can be used to enrich the classroom context opening it up to real life contents; in the meanwhile the outside world starts having a window into students' lives. But if we have a look from another point of view we’ll see they are much more than just windows. They are WEB 2.0 tools.

3. Teachers, blogs and edublogs

Self-reflection is a hallmark of many teachers' blogs, the first stop for most teachers who want to try blogging.

Some teacher decide to manage a classroom blog to keep contents up to date and improve communication with (younger) students. According to its functions, contents and users, we could identify it according to this map.Mainly, teachers support the learning process publishing activities, tasks and texts directly related to classroom programming, and/or give their students a PLE, proposing different and complementary activities, links and texts.

But only a few blogs succeed encouraging students' production of content (making them curators of information) and consequentely the development of basic skills such as:- Digital competences

4. Tips&tricks

There are thousand of interesting new blogs, as well as a large number of blogs which are obviously the result of reckless copying and pasting. Like this one of course!!!So you want to blog too? Then read on, as I am in a generous mood ;-) and I am willing to share some tips for successful blogging.

Mar 16, 2012

MASPALOMAS

TO HOST WORLD TOURISM DAY

SEPTEMBER 27th, 2012

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"La Charca" (Maspalomas lagoon)

The United Nations World Tourism Organisation has decided ﻿the 2012 official World Tourism Day (WTD) celebrations will be held in Maspalomas, Gran Canaria, Spain (27 September 2012). Under the theme “Tourism and Sustainable Energy: Powering Sustainable Development”, WTD 2012 highlights the need to bring the tourism sector and energy stakeholderscloser together to spur tourism’s contribution to sustainability. We will do our best to hold the most fruitful and unforgetable event ever: be ready to travel and live the "Fortunate Islands" experience!

Mar 9, 2012

FIRST SAND STORM OF THE SEASON

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My neighbourhood 10/01/2012

My "spooky" neighbourhood 09/03/2012

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These two pictures have been taken from the same point, at the same time in different days. The first one is a typical clear and sunny day in The Canaries, and the second one shows a phenomenon known as CALIMA.

"Calima" means dust or sand in the atmosphere. This dust/sand comes from the near Sahara Desert. When this dust storm is accompanied by hot and strong winds the phenomenon is called SIROCO.

Fortunately, this happens only twice or three times a year, specially in the Autumn and in the Spring.

So are you tired of snow already? At least snow melts down: we have to remove dust when the storm is over (outside and inside houses)...Paradise doesn't exist after all, don't you think so?

Feb 19, 2012

Carnival is one of the most popular festivities in The Canaries. Even though it is celebrated in all municipalities, the Carnival of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria might be the most flamboyant and eye catching of all because of its richness and number of participants. It is followed by Maspalomas Carnival, the most cosmopolitan since we have participants and visitors from all over the world. People enjoy all kind of shows and activities in the open air during three weeks of fun. Among the most popular shows we have The Queen Gala (video) and The Drag Queen Gala (video). The contestants for the Queen's throne wear very heavy dresses (called fantasies which weigh up to 100 kilos) which prove the designers' creativity and skills. On the other hand, Drag Queens are characterised by wearing high platform shoes with which they have to perform on stage in front of nearly 5,000 people who had previously queued for three days in order to get a ticket for the show.

The Cabalgata (the big parade) is also one of the craziest events, with more than a hundred decked coaches followed by thousands (usually more than 250,000) of citizens and visitors in disguises and official groups like murgas (group of singers with ironic and funny lyrics) and comparsas (group of dancers). Every night (but specially at the weekends) there are free parties on the streets (called mogollón) and the Carnival finishes with the Burial of the Sardine: the Sardine fish represents carnival, so its burial means that the party is over; this is an allegorical party, and everybody dresses in black costumes and pretends being in a funeral (a hilarious funeral). And the best of all: safety! Even though the number of participants may sound scary, the truth is that the rate of criminality and delinquency is practically non-existent. So, what are you waiting for? Hurry up, the party is coming to an end!

Carnival is a great opportunity to create motivating activities for language learning, and thanks to the vicarious experience offered by the Net, there is no need to travel physically to different parts of the world in order to get to know this festivity. Here you have some online ideas for Carnival activities (by courtesy of Oxford University Press).﻿

Feb 16, 2012

Hi everyone, hope you're doing good. Just booked my air ticket and got excited about the study visit as it's approaching. I wish you all the best and melting, it's still freezing here, temperature's gone up to minus 3 :-) though. Looking forward to meet you all. Cheers

Jan 15, 2012

CEDEFOP confirmed on January 9th the composition of our group. We will be 16 + 1 participants in total, so we welcome (in the order they appear in CEDEFOP's list)...

The weather in winter - picture taken on 1/1/2012

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Liesbeth Pennewaard, from The Netherlands﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

Philippe Anckaert, from Belgium

Renata Müllerová, from The Check Republic

Zofia Kozielska, from Poland

Rudolf Reisenberge, from Austria

Lilia Hristova, from Bulgaria

Anna Kulinska, from Poland

Krzysztof Lichy, from Poland

Wiktor Kostrzewski, from The United Kingdom

Maria Badinska, from Slovakia

Viktória Tafferner-Gulyás, from Hungary

Fenisia Serembe, from Italy

Maria De Cillis, from Italy

Evelyne Sacchet, from France

Eva Karlsson, from Sweden

Daniel Batteauw, from Belgium

All the participants have already received a welcome letter via e-mail (download) as well as some information about the hotel and reservation tips (download)

We must say that as host institution we are glad because all the participants have replied with great enthusiasm and motivation, so we thank you and welcome you once more, and we also look forward to meeting you in Maspalomas.

Countdown: looking forward to meeting you in Maspalomas!

WELCOME

Welcome to the blog of the CEDEFOP Study Visit nº 194 "How to Integrate ICT and Foreign Language Teaching in Language Schools in Spain", organised by EOI Maspalomas in Gran Canaria (Spain). We hope this will be a useful platform to exchange information, ideas, experience, resources, interests, concerns, contact information, etc. so that we can establish the base for future cooperation and projects within a European dimension. We are looking forward to meeting you in Maspalomas, and we hope we can work together on the field of foreign language teaching and ICT in order to learn from each other and become better professionals.